Union fight on work rights

Ben Schneiders

UNIONS will mobilise more than a quarter of a million members in marginal seats as they make a major new push on limiting insecure work, so that workers can transfer leave and entitlements between jobs.

In a speech to the National Press Club on Wednesday, Secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Dave Oliver will say that Opposition Leader Tony Abbott ''is no friend of working people'' and is still the same person who once said ''a bad boss was like a bad husband - doing more good than harm''.

''There are 283,890 union members in 38 of the most marginal electorates in Australia,'' an excerpt from Mr Oliver's speech says. ''And for the next eight months, we intend to mobilise them and speak to the hundreds of thousands of other workers in those areas.''

It comes as Mr Oliver will announce a push on insecure work. He will say that unions will campaign for a national scheme so that workplace entitlements, such as annual leave and sick leave, should be able to be transferred between jobs.

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Similar schemes exist in industries such as construction.

''We live in a world where many people have two or three employers one week, and the next week one,'' Mr Oliver will say. ''In this world, entitlements that we all agree should be the right of everyone with an Australian job - things like annual leave and sick leave - don't translate very well.''

''If you're doing nine hours at one childcare employer and 18 hours at another, and you get sick, at the moment, you probably have no right to sick pay from either boss.''

Mr Oliver told Fairfax Media that unions regard introducing a universal national portable leave scheme as akin to the campaigns on issue, such as compulsory superannuation.